Monday, 28 August 2017

A Plaster Bust of Shakespeare.This page was updated on the 17 November 2017.
No size given, but presumably the same size as the Garrick Club bust by Shout illustrated below
See - http://collections.soane.org/object-sc68

After the original by Edward Pearce.and Sir Christopher WrenThe Marble Bust by Edward PearceAshmolean Museum Oxford

Christopher Wren

Plaster

Low resolution photograph of the plaster bust of Christopher Wren from The St Paul's Cathedral website

Sizes - Height 76 x Width 61 x Depth 29 cms .

Another view of the St Paul's bust of Christopher Wren.

The form of the socle woul;d suggest that it was manufactured by the same caster as the Soane bust.

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Sir Christopher Wren (1632 - 1723).

Marble Bust

Edward Pierce

Ashmolean Museum Oxford

Page from Catalogue of the Portraits ... University Colleges... Oxford, Poole

Sir Christopher Wren FRS

Edward Pearce (1635 - 95).

Height 66.1 cms.

Presented by Christopher Wren (his son) to the University of Oxford in 1737.

Transferred to the Ashmolean Museum in 1916.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Photographed by the author.

Pearce would have known Wren intimately. He joined the St Paul's Office as a Master Mason under Wren in 1678 and left in 1690.

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Sir Christopher Wren FRS

after Sir Godfrey Kneller

St Paul's Cathedral.

There is another version in the National Portrait Gallery.

They say by Kneller

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Christopher Wren

Klosterman (1660 - 1711).

143 x 121 cms

Originally framed together as a double portrait with his father Christopher Wren DD and later separated ( the portrait of Wren senior now missing).. Donated to the Royal Society in 1750 by Stephen Wren gandson of Sir Christopher

A pair of these figures were made by Flaxman for the painter Sir Thomas Lawrence but it is not known which pair. Besides those illustrated here there is a pair at the Royal Academy and there was also a pair at University College (destroyed).

From January 1837 Maria Denman the sister in law of Flaxman negotiated the acquisition with the Trustees of Sir John Soane. They were at last sent to the museum on 6th December 1838.

This bust along with a marble bust of Sir Christopher Wren and a Marble bust of Inigo Jones were presented to the RIBA in 1835 by HE Kendall.

_______________________________________The Busts of Michaelangelo by and after Michael Rysbrack

A Plaster bust of Michelangelo

Paired with a bust of Palladio

Se my previous post

Life Size

Private Collection

Michelangelo

Plaster bust paired with a bust of Palladio (see below).

Life Size

Superb condition - minor restoration on the socle.

After Michael Rysbrack

George Vertue mentions a bust of Michelangelo in the studio of Rysbrack sometime before 1732

see Walpole Soc. Journal.XXII Vertue III. p.57.

I am very grateful to the owner for allowing me to photograph this bust and its companion bust of Palladio.

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Sir Joshua Reynolds and his bust of Michaelangelo.

Two portraits of Joshua Reynolds (- 1792) also depicting his much valued bust of 'Michael Angelo'

The bust shown in these two portraits has always been referred to until now as the bust of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra but these must be versions of the bust by Michael Rysbrack. It would appear that Da Volterra left three bronze heads with busts and three heads of Michael Angelo in his studio when he died. (see article by Jeremy Warren below).

It is my contention that the Rysbrack bust, known before 1727 and seen by George Vertue was taken from a bronze head of Michelangelo by da Volterra which was probably in his own collection and which is believed to be that bust that was acquired by Richard Cosway and is now in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford.

Sir Joshua Reynolds with the bust of 'Michael Angelo'

Angelica Kaufman

oil on canvas

127 x 101.5 cms

1767

Photograph courtesy National Trust, Saltram, Devon.

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Self Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds wearing his robes as Honarary Oxford DCL as Presedent of the Royal Academy

with a bust of Michelangelo

Presented to the Royal Academy in 1780.

After Sir Joshua Reynolds

Self Portrait

Valentine Green

480 x 380 mm.

Mezzotint

I Dec 1780.

British Museum.

The bust in these portraits was the last item put up for auction - Lot 78 - 19 May 1821 by Christie's the in Pall Mall, in the sale of the properties of the Marchioness of Thomond, the niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds who had died the previous year. (Article from the Globe).

There is no mention of material.

see Art in England, 1821 - 1837 by William Whitley pub. Cambridge University Press 1930.

Sir Joshua Reynolds A Complete Catalogue... Mannings, pub. Yale 2000.

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The Portrait Bust of Michelangelo

By Daniele Ricciarelli Da Volterra.

Ashmolean Museum

A short essay from Renaissance Master Bronzes ... Ashmolean by Jeremy Warren. 1999.

The provenance to Richard Cosway to my mind is perhaps now doubtful given that the bust of Micheal Angelo in this self portrait is full length and closer to the Rysbrack Model.

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"The historian should be fearless and incorruptible; a man of independence, loving frankness and truth; one who, as the poets says, calls a fig a fig and a spade a spade. He should yield to neither hatred nor affection, not should be unsparing and unpitying. He should be neither shy nor deprecating, but an impartial judge, giving each side all it deserves but no more. He should know in his writing no country and no city; he should bow to no authority and acknowledge no king. He should never consider what this or that man will think, but should state the facts as they really occurred. Lucian of Samosata